


Nostalgia

by coMANNNdo



Category: The 100 (TV)
Genre: Abuse, Angst, Blood, Domestic Violence, F/F, Fluff, Gore, Highschool AU, Self-Harm, Slow Burn, Tumblr Prompt, trigger warning
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2015-03-26
Updated: 2015-07-10
Packaged: 2018-03-19 17:03:10
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 6
Words: 12,929
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3617490
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/coMANNNdo/pseuds/coMANNNdo
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>She was soft and warm and smelt like roses and flowers and everything nice, and Lexa's lips looked so dangerously, dangerously soft.</p><p>Or, Clarke and Lexa have been best friends since childhood, and Clarke has been in love with her best friend since that one summer evening.</p><p>Based on a tumblr prompt.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. (Thanks for) the Childhood Memories

**Author's Note:**

> This is still being written, but the style of writing is going to change a little bit between this chapter and the future ones, because this one was just filling out a bit of back story first. I'm so sorry! I hope I don't unsettle you too much with the switch.
> 
> Also a warning, in this fanfiction I'm slowly transitioning children Lexa and Clarke into more canon versions of them, so forgive me for anything too OOC in the first few chapters!

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The beginnings of what will be a literal life story.

"Wait, wait, Lexa!" Moments later, Clarke tripped on a tree root that was sticking out of the earth, since she hadn't paid any particular attention to where she had been going. The brunette twirled around when she heard the resounding, "Owwwww!" Practically sprinting back up the trail to the tree swing as hard as a little 6 year old girl could, Lexa saw Clarke sprawled out on the ground, the little blonde biting back tears.

"Clarke!" The older girl immediately fell to her knees beside the blonde, gently grasping her one of her arms and tenderly helping her into a sitting position, concern etched into her face. "Where is it hurting?" Clarke pointed to her right knee, where some of the skin had been grazed off, and then gestured to her palm. The brunette gently touched Clarke's knee to see how much damage there was, but instantly recoiled in shock when Clarke had jerked her knee away from the touch, silently wishing she hadn't hurt the younger girl.

"Lexa, it huuuuuuurts!" Clarke started to cry, and Lexa wiped away the tears with her tiny thumbs, before kissing her on the cheek. Holding Clarke's face in her little hands, Lexa gave the blonde one of her little half smiles.

"It'll be fine in a few minutes, I promise! C'mon, I'll help you get up."

"But I don't want tooooo!"

"Clarke, come on. I won't leave you behind this time. I promise." Lexa grasped the other girl's hands in her own, giving them a gentle tug, trying to help the younger girl to get back up onto her feet. Lexa wouldn't forget the moment that startlingly blue eyes met her own, tear-stained. She was too young to realize then, but that was the exact moment Clarke had decided to place all of her trust in her. It seems cliche to say, something too worn out to explain something truly unique for them, but it's enough.

Not even 5 minutes later, Clarke was running around with Lexa again in an slightly ambitious game of tag, slightly grazed knee forgotten.

 

 

 

"Argggggh! What the hell is 8 times 9 divided by 6?" Clarke threw away her math workbook, her work pencil following soon after. Her math sheets were scattered around the book, blindingly white against the new summer sun.

Lexa looked up from her english homework book, which she was supposed to be reading for her class next week, to give the younger girl an disapproving look. "Clarke, you will not learn if you throw away your books."

"Well, help me then, Miss I-Know-It-All-Because-I'm-Older!" Clarke punctuates her retort by imitating Regina George from Mean Girls' 'I'm better than you' posture.

Lexa had laughed at that, placing her Harry Potter bookmark in her book, before getting off the tree swing and placing it down next to Clarke's slightly too tattered fake furred pencil case (that was all the rage amongst the 10 year olds at their school at the moment for some reason unknown to Lexa, who was one for more landscape aesthetic pencil cases). Clarke was starting to feel slightly guilty as the older girl kneeled down and started to carefully pick up all of Clarke's sheets and started to put them in order, when a gust of wind blew through the meadow - destroying Lexa's efforts and scattering the sheets again. Clarke and Lexa ran after them, laughing and screaming in triumph every time they had managed to stomp on one to stop it flying away (although Clarke was substantially less pleased when she would flip them over in class the day after and see the dirty shoeprints on them). 15 minutes later they had flopped themselves under the tree again, laughing and out of breath, sheets now safely tucked into Clarke's book.

Clarke looked over at Lexa, chest still rising and falling dramatically, breath coming out in pants, "It's 12, right?"

The older girl stared back, lips curling into the small smile she saved specially for Clarke as she nodded.

"Clarke, Lexa! We've got lunch, come in!"

Lexa sprung to her feet, twirling around to offer Clarke one of her hands with the excuse that if she missed Abby's divine cooking, she might just not be able to operate.

Clarke took her hand.

 

 

 

Lexa had left their primary school the year before, and Clarke had missed her in the solitary year she had spent without her, despite having Bellamy, Raven, Octavia, and almost half of her year group as friends. They still caught up in the weekends when Lexa had time, in the meadow behind Clarke's house. It was the same as "old times" - Lexa helping Clarke with her homework, and Clarke helping to keep Lexa's mind off of things she couldn't control.

It was one particular afternoon that stuck in Clarke's head, from that time period of her childhood that was spent transitioning into a teenager. The tree that they had as their little special place was no longer as big as it once seemed, and the swing hanging down from it could now only hold one of them instead of the two side-by-side it once could've held. They had just finished jumping off the jetty into the lake, screeching and laughing about the water being too cold, goosebumps rising along their arms, and now had towels wrapped around themselves. They had been silent for awhile, their backs pressed against the rough bark of the tree, watching as the sun began to set on that summer evening. Traces of red and orange highlighted the environment around them, giving everything a warmly glow that only summer could give.

Clarke had looked over to Lexa, and this immense feeling hit her like a ton of bricks. She felt like she had fallen off her bike, like that one time Lexa had challenged her to a race to see who could ride to the dairy the fastest to buy ice cream last year. She almost couldn't breathe. Lexa looked peaceful. Her eyes were closed, lips parted slightly, orange summer hue lighting up her face in a way Clarke had been blind to before. And she wanted to kiss her all of a sudden. Not the innocent cheek kisses they had exchanged frequently as children, but actually on the other girl's lips, like what adults did when they got a starry look in their eyes. Which was not something she should do to her best friend she's known since childhood. Swallowing, Clarke glanced away, her hand reaching for Lexa's.

And her stomach flipped when Lexa's fingers intertwined with her own automatically.

They lay there for awhile, Clarke trying to dismiss this aching, this sort of longing, that she felt deep instead her chest. This was weird, she hadn't really felt anything quite like this before, and she wished that it would simply go away. It was annoying and it made her want to hit something. The two of them had been so caught up in their own little worlds, that they hadn't noticed that the sun had creeped down further on the horizon, and it was threateningly close to disappearing altogether.

Lexa had opened her eyes again, turning to Clarke and murmuring a soft, "What's up?"

Deep blue met freckled green, and as Clarke made eye contact with the other girl, she felt something like electricity coursing through her system. She makes a note to ask Abby about this feeling later (Abby was a doctor, she should know how to fix this feeling, Clarke reasons). The younger girl's wide eyed look made Lexa laugh, and ask again, "No, seriously, what's up? You haven't held my hand since we were way younger."

"Nothing."

"I'm serious, Clarke." Lexa pulled on a serious face, pushing out her lips and putting on an exaggerated frown, the face exchanged for a half smile when Clarke had giggled.

"I don't want to talk about it."

"That's okay. We can always talk about it later." Lexa left go of Clarke's hand, pushing herself to her feet, complaining that her ass was stiff and God, why did bark have to be so uncomfortable to lean on for several hours? Clarke couldn't think, she could only miss the feel of Lexa's hand in her own, and stared down at her own hand. It seemed incomplete without Lexa's. "We better head in, your mum seemed pretty serious when she said that she'd kill us if we came in after the sun had set." Lexa offered Clarke one of her hands to help her get up.

Clarke took her hand, and refused to let go until Lexa had to take a shower.

 

 

 

Their friendship had changed when they both entered the first of year of high school, because they had changed. They had become closer, and closer, and closer. Which was only to be expected, seeing as they both attended the same high school and could spend as much time as they wanted with each other. But as they got more close, as the innocence of childhood faded away, dark things started to creep into the bond between them.

They always had their sleepovers at Clarke's, they always met at Clarke's. And it wasn't until Lexa had turned up on her doorstep at 2:56AM that she discovered why.

Abby had opened the door to reveal the brunette's lone figure, illuminated by the night light attached to the entrance. Lexa was sobbing, harder than the time she had visited the hospital when Clarke had been in a car accident that had claimed the blonde's father's life, and had almost claimed Clarke too. Blood stained the sleeves of her dark grey hoodie in clear and defined lines, and her face and her hands were covered in dried blood. Her hair was starting to escape the complex braids that Clarke had only just weaved together a couple of hours before. Her chest heaved as sobs racked her entire body, and Lexa tried not to cave into herself and fall onto her knees onto the Griffin's door mat. Clarke had practically tripped down the stairs in her rush to try and reach Lexa as soon as she heard her mother call out for her with a wavering voice, her online chick flick marathon over Skype with Octavia that night forgotten.

Lexa had always made Clarke come alive in a way that no one never could, which wasn't abnormal for a pair of best friends, but as soon as Clarke saw the older girl that night, every molecule of her body froze. The books weren't lying when they said that once somebody had been figuratively 'frozen' into place, they were powerless. Because they felt powerless. Lexa took two shaky steps towards the blonde, before collapsing into Clarke's arms, sobbing harder than before, her arms tightening around the shocked Clarke as if she had been stranded out at sea and the blonde was the only lifejacket.

That night, when Lexa's wounds on her arms had been stitched in Abby's clinic, and the blood had been cleaned off, Abby had taken her back to their house; ordering Lexa to stay put on the couch as she went into the kitchen to phone Marcus Kane, one of the police officers she knew that had dealt with domestic violence and abuse. Clarke had been holding Lexa's hand as often as she could, and now she was kneeling on the floor right before the older girl lying sideways on the couch, silent tears running down her face. She couldn't just see her best friend shiver in pain, newly stitched up and cleaned, without whispering in what was possibly the softest, most loving tone Lexa had ever heard, "I'm so sorry. You said she was getting better. I saw the way she looked at you when we dropped you off. I should've done something. I'm-"

Lexa opened her eyes, looking at Clarke in a way the blonde couldn't quite identify that made her stop mid-sentence; and whispered back, "Love is weakness," before struggling to sit up, sweeping aside Clarke's feeble attempts to stop her. Leaning forward, Lexa offered Clarke her hand.

Clarke took it, and this time she realized the strength in Lexa's arms, the way Lexa hid her pain, and how she had managed to hide her pain for a long, long time. Lexa was only 15.

Clarke wishes that it had been her instead.

 

 

 

The second year of highschool for Lexa was so much happier. Lexa's mother was out of her life, and her older cousin Gustus had re-entered it, taking her in with a massive hug that almost hid the brunette from Clarke's view. Lexa began to stabilize, and the wounds on her arms become nothing but brown and silver lines that faded into her sun kissed skin. Lexa continued to soar skyhigh with her grades, and began to tutor Clarke because Clarke was fucking hopeless with any subject that wasn't art or design. Their friendship became stronger than ever, to the point that they would call each other every night after school. They hung out almost every day, and their separate friend groups had become one, solely because of the tight friendship between the two girls (Lexa had been impressed, Anya and Indra were usually stoic and closed off to socializing in general).

One time, after school, Clarke had gone over to Lexa's, with Gustus warning her with his usual, playful, "If you so much as look at her the wrong way, I'll fight you," and in reply, Lexa would scoff and grab Clarke's hand with her own and haul her down the hallway to her room. Clarke pretended to ignore the fact that the older girl's touch made her heart work overtime, which wasn't helped in the slightest by how physically close they were. How physically close they usually were. Which was quite often, given Lexa's fondness to being close to people she enjoys the company of.

Once they had reached their destination - often Lexa's room, or the living room - they would usually study, talk about how shit their school's funding was, do homework, or nap with their limbs tangled.

But today was a bit different. Not that they had planned to be any different, it had just panned out differently. They had been studying Biology (despite a year's difference between the two), when Lexa had started theorising about how love and attraction was actually physically expressed in a biological sense too - not just emotionally - and she was completely hypnotised by what her teacher had told her about it. She wasn't hypnotised by the emotions - her mother had tried to groom Lexa to believe that love was weakness, it was a human flaw, unworthy of her time - but how they were expressed, and how her psychology teacher had told her to spot the signs. Clarke felt her heart thudding against her ribcage faster and faster, and her knee was burning where it was touching Lexa's. She needed this discussion to stop, by any means possible - not that she'd tell Lexa that, she'd never tell her that.

"Maybe we should stop studying for awhile?"

Lexa had looked up, her glasses tilted to the side because of how her head had been resting on her fist. Clarke resisted the urge to correct them. "Yeah, sure. Everyone needs to take a break sooner or later."

They had tossed their biology folders on the floor, before leaning against Lexa's bedroom wall, relieved to have finished studying - at least, for awhile. Lexa was a little bit of a study maniac. They stayed like that for some time, staring out of Lexa's window, watching as a bus stopped at the stop out on the street and people piled out, schoolboys among them. Lexa had dug her elbow softly into Clarke's side at the sight, looking between her and the boys, making a suggestive face. Clarke's face flushed, and she looked away (Lexa forgot about it in 20 minutes, but Clarke didn't forget about it until the year after).

It wasn't until during Friday lunchtime at school the week after, when Raven, Bellamy, Octavia, Lexa, and her were sitting on the field (Anya and Indra were serving lunchtime detention due to sassing out a transphobic asshole, with fists involved) that the subject of sexuality came up. All of them hadn't been in an relationship, let alone had enough time to question themselves, and they had just found out that Fox had hooked up with some other girl that they hadn't met yet in the year below Clarke's. They were curious. 

"Since the rest of you girls aren't going to say it, I'm gonna say it. Girls are pretty fucking hot." Raven had smirked as she said it, leaning back on her hands. Octavia shook her head, Bellamy laughed, Clarke blushed as she tried not to look at Lexa, and Lexa could only nod her head in agreement.

Raven saw Clarke's blush, and sensing an opportunity, asked, "So... Clarke, do you like anyone?", with an suggestive waggle of her eyebrows. All of a sudden, the group's entire focus was centred on Clarke, and she felt as if someone had stuck a microphone in her hands and shoved her out on the stage before thousands of people. It was then that the bell rang, and Raven had groaned as if she had missed out on the opportunity to meet Beyoncé. "Saved by the bell, Griffin."

When Clarke was about to get up off of the grass that was apart of what their school called a 'field' - which was honestly quite stupid because it was more like a lawn - Lexa had offered her hand to help, and she pulled the blonde up. But this time, she didn't let go of Clarke's hand. "So Clarke, _who_ do you like?"

Clarke could've died right then and there. But then, she had Chemistry next, and her teacher would kill her if she missed out another lesson, so she all but runs away. 

She doesn't see how Lexa's face falls.


	2. It's a One, a One, Two, Three

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The first times that Lexa and Clarke experience, and the complications of growing up.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So I decided to update this after sitting at the kitchen table reading fluffy fanfictions instead of studying. I do indeed live on the wild side of life. 
> 
> On another note, thank you for the kudos and comments - I really appreciate any feedback from you guys, and I hope I can live up to your expectations!

They had been friends through a lot of 'firsts'.

The first time they got a detention, it had been for the time that they had played a prank on Mr. Cage Wallace, a homophobic sex education speaker for kids who had been invited to their school to give a small talk (as if high school students didn't already know why and how people bumped uglies). The prank was legendary in the history of their uptight school - while he had been addressing the students during an entire school assembly, Lexa and Clarke had run across the stage to "I Kissed A Girl" (courtesy of Monty the school audio guy) in bright, obnoxious rainbow attire, yelling that homosexuality was perfectly normal, and that Cage only preached against LGBT+ rights because - and Jasper still quotes - "he wasn't hot enough to land any studs in his prime". It was totally worth the two weeks of after school detentions.

The first time Lexa had kissed someone had come about after the brunette had come out as lesbian (she really didn't have to because pretty much everyone knew, but she insisted for the sake of being official), and so due to Clarke's extraordinary (and reluctant) wingwoman skills, she had finished her Friday night at the back of a shitty coffee place with a pretty girl from their school. The first time Clarke had kissed somebody, it had been during a obligatory study session with Finn at his place, and she had imagined that his lips were Lexa's. Finn had said goodnight at her front door with a genuine smile, and Clarke had said goodnight at her front door with a sinking feeling. When they had compared their first kisses, Clarke resists the urge to run as far away from Lexa as possible. She felt stupid for fantasizing about her best friend's lips in English, that she would be her first. 

The first time Lexa had driven a car, Clarke had watched proudly from the corner of the abandoned parking lot as Gustus beamed and tried to hold back sentimental tears from the front passenger seat of his manual Toyota 4X4. The brunette had just rolled to a stop after perfectly completing the course Gustus had set out for her, and had laughed when Clarke had run up and declared her the sober driver on the spot. Gustus gave Clarke a mock glare. The first time Clarke had driven a car, Abby was in the front passenger seat and Lexa was seated in the back, whispering encouraging words to the blonde. The brunette was the only reason Clarke didn't crash into a pole out of frustration that day, and everyone in the car knew it - and certainly felt it the next day. Lexa wouldn't let Clarke forget about how sore her neck was for the next week, and Clarke just blushed in response.

The first time Clarke acknowledged she was in love with Lexa was at the age of 17. She had been in her kitchen, dicing tomatoes for their salad while the other girl was doing schoolwork. It hadn't been anything particular that had set off the realisation, she had looked up to say something, just to see Lexa's brow furrowed as she tried to decipher her English teacher's difficult handwriting; and the feeling had hit her hard. Lexa had looked up over the top of her glasses, soft white and grey wool sweater slipping off one of her shoulders, twirling a red pen in her hand (which must've accurately represented the colour of Clarke's face at that particular moment). They stayed like for a moment, Clarke's blood reaching fever pitch just as Lexa commented, "You really must learn to discipline yourself and not pick at the vegetables you just chopped," leaning over the kitchen island and gently wiping a tomato seed away from the corner of blonde's lips with her thumb. It didn't help the pace of Clarke's heart that she could see that the brunette had been focusing so intently on her lips, the feeling of her thumb gently brushing over them to complete their task felt like it would be enough to give her a heart attack.

That particular moment replayed over and over in Clarke's head like a broken YouTube video that night - she was so far gone that the words on her Physics report blurred together, and Lexa had to stop the blonde from accidentally emailing the Physics teacher with a document named "101 Reasons Why Physics Is Useless - For Dummies."

At the end of the night, Lexa had said something about needing to drive home before Gustus got back, and she had stood up to stretch out the dull feeling in her muscles that could have only come from studying in one position for too long. As she leaned back and lifted up her arms, groaning with relief (Clarke feels a surge of warmth), her tank top had ridden up above her shorts - revealing a smooth line of fading hickeys near the inside of the brunette's hipbone. It wasn't until Lexa had stopped stretching and was staring back at Clarke with an arched eyebrow that the blonde snapped out of her hickey-induced trance.

When Lexa had offered her hand and pulled Clarke to her feet, she didn't let go of the younger girl's hand immediately - and for the first time, Clarke felt uncomfortable holding her best friend's hand, and tried to subtly pull her hand away. She didn't want to touch the person she couldn't have, not any longer than she had to. The brunette let the blonde's fingers slide away from her own, deciding to intertwine her fingers into the other girl's hair instead, and pressed a soft kiss to her forehead. Clarke's face burned.

"You're the little sister I never had, Clarke."

That night Clarke wondered if Lexa had fallen in love for the first time with the person who had marked her. If Lexa had left her behind. 

 

 

 

Lexa, Clarke, and the rest of their friends had been invited to a party for the first time at some absurdly popular chick from their school's massive house that was stationed in the wealthier area of the city, and they had all been split up over the course of the night. Absolutely smashed off of her face, bass was being blasted out of the speakers so hard that Clarke thought that it might just be enough force to jumpstart her heart if it ever stopped, and busting to take a piss, she had stumbled into one of the bathrooms, only to find herself stumbling in on a brunette and a half-naked girl whose face was blocked from Clarke's point of view. Clarke had frozen, her drunk, sluggish thoughts trying to comprehend what she was seeing, what it meant if the brunette was sliding her hand up the girl's skirt; when the brunette had turned around at the intrusion with traces of a scowl that faded once she had identified the intruder, and Clarke had seen the iconic eyeliner. Her heart had stopped, and suddenly she felt as cold as the cheap beers she had drunk earlier, feeling even colder as she awkwardly smiled, gave the thumbs-up, and stumbled down the hall again. Clarke didn't think the bass was loud or forceful enough to jumpstart her heart anymore.

At the end of the night, Octavia had looked after Clarke after finding the blonde sprawled out on the front lawn dressed in nothing but underwear and a obnoxiously pink flamingo tutu, occasionally mumbling "Lightweight," underneath her breath. There was no strong, sturdy hand to pull her up this time. Not that she wanted it to, not after where it had been.

 

 

 

Clarke had a sex dream about Lexa for the first time a night later. Lexa laid out against her bed sheets, the navy sheets contrasting against her tanned skin, biting into her hand to keep from moaning as Clarke moved against her. Flushed, sun kissed skin, freckled collarbones, love bitten pulse points. And all of this was fuelled by the primal, basic urge to get off, to fuck Lexa senseless.

The position changed, and by now Lexa had given up on biting back half-formed moans, letting them fall from her lips like they were prayers into Clarke's ear. Clarke could almost feel it, hot, sweaty, and full of promise -

Her phone's shrill alarm went off and Clarke had jolted awake, feeling amazingly warm, her thighs squeezing together, desperate for friction. Groaning in frustration, she had grabbed a pillow and smashed her face into it, only to throw it across the room as soon as she had detected Lexa's favourite perfume on it.

 

 

 

The first time Clarke purposely avoided Lexa, it was the Wednesday of the week after the weekend party, and Clarke hadn't been feeling too good recently. She had just spent the last two nights as all-nighters finishing off the final portraits she needed for her art and design board, and to be quite honest, she didn't feel quite up to socialising. Aka: seeing Lexa without the fresh image of the other girl topping someone else dominating her brain. So when the bell had gone for lunch, she had grabbed a lunch tray and practically devoured the shittiness that is school cafeteria food (which is why her mother always insisted on healthier, home made meals), and was just about to leave when she had stupidly decided to stall for a second to look back over her shoulder at the table where her friends had just sat at. They hadn't seen her yet. Which was good. Really good. She should leave while she had the chance. But she might as well wait for Monty to deliver his daily, beginning of lunch bad joke:

"So two skeletons were walking down the street. One of the skeletons fell down, so his friend offered him his hand and tried to get him back on his feet. He gave up after awhile, and said, 'Mate, you weigh a skele... Ton.'"

In Clarke's opinion, that was one of Monty's better ones for awhile. Raven and Monty high fived when they could stop laughing for long enough, Jasper groaned and went back to his previously abandoned conversation with Maya, Lincoln and Octavia had arched the same eyebrow in sync with one another (which was amusing enough in itself for Raven and Monty and encouraged an entirely new round of laughter), and so the duty of greeting the baffled Lexa that had wandered in with an equally baffled looking girl that was practically glued to her side was left to Bellamy.

The sight of Lexa was Clarke's cue to take her leave, as her jaw clenched and something hard and heavy settled in the bottom of her stomach. Bashing through the glass cafeteria doors, not caring about whether or not she left hand prints on Mr. Jaha's prized possessions (which was absolutely weird by the way - like, whose most prized possession is glass cafeteria doors? Maybe he had a glass door kink or something. In any case, if you asked Clarke's opinion, he needed to see a therapist), she narrowly avoided smashing into some random guy.

She really, really didn't feel like socialising.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I may or may not be bitter about Physics at the moment. 
> 
> Also, have you guys noticed that a lot of Clexa fanfiction have titles with words in brackets after the main title bit? It's sassy. Sassy titles. I want a sassy title.


	3. Rain Cleanses Our Mistakes

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Clarke almost, almost, gives in. So to quell the urge, she punches a hoe.
> 
> Lexa begins her descent.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'm so, so sorry! For the rest of my break I had been working on three other Clexa fanfictions (which will hopefully be posted soon, too, because I have spent waaaay too much time on them not to), and this one got put on the back-burner for a bit. And then high school came in and slapped me in the face because I have to keep up my grade average (how dare they make me go to school when I have queer fanfiction to write?).
> 
> But fear no more, I put in some writing hours and from now on I will be able to update weekly! 
> 
> In addition, if you see anything new whilst reading back over the previous two chapters, it's because I've gone back and polished them a little bit to let the story flow a little bit better.

Clarke had almost kissed Lexa, once.

It was a stormy winter night in the middle of Lexa's last year at highschool, and the rain hadn't ceased since that morning. So of course, the appropriate course of action was to construct a pillow fort in Lexa's living room, centered around the TV (because one, they just fucking could, and two, because Gustus was away for the weekend and wouldn't huff at the sight of his favourite designer cushions on the floor).

After debating the construction of their blanket fort in a rather heated manner -

"No, Lexa, you've got it all wrong. If we set the cushions up as walls here and here, we can just chuck the blankets on top. Boom. Maximum comfort."

"We should make a cushion floor, place the blankets and pillows on top of that so it is practically a large bed, and then use the furniture to drape the blankets off of for minimum casualties in cases of accidental deconstruction."

"But then that takes _effort_."

"With great blanket forts, comes great responsibility, Clarke -"

They had begun to fool around in Lexa's kitchen making popcorn in preparation for watching iconic chick flicks and other movies (Mean Girls, The Notebook, The Princess Diaries, Love Actually, etc, it was like living in 2007 again) in their newly constructed fort. Simply waiting for the popcorn to pop was too much for them, so they started a competition of who could slide the longest distance in their socks on the tile floor (Lexa had won the first few times. According to Clarke, this was only because of sock sabotage) -

"It _cannot_ be humanly possible to slide that far!"

"Your understanding of physics is shocking, Clarke -"

Their sliding competition had abruptly ended when Clarke had collided into Lexa halfway through their eighth go and they had to cling to each other to avoid toppling over into the cupboards, hysterically laughing for absolutely no reason at all, except for the fact that they could. Desperately trying to regain their balance through flailing limbs and grabbing onto each other's over-sized sweater, it was inevitable that they would eventually fail and fall onto the carpeted floor that connected the kitchen and living room.

Lexa had fallen on top of Clarke with a soft " _Ummph,_ " and their bodies had been pressed flush together. Clarke's first thought is to thank gravity. Lexa's loose, wavy hair was hanging down from her face and was tickling Clarke's, and all Clarke could take note of was how Lexa hadn't moved away already. And she didn't want her to, either. She was soft and warm and smelt like roses and flowers and everything nice, and Lexa's lips looked so dangerously, dangerously soft. She meekly raises a hand to Lexa's cheek to brush some strands of hair out of the girl's face, and tries her hardest not to focus on her best friend's slightly parted lips. Lexa's hand burns the skin of her shoulder where her sweater has ridden down, and the blonde tries not to think about curve of her best friend's breasts pressing against her own. The brunette just stays where she is, slightly wide-eyed as she takes in the girl below her; and Clarke could almost hear the sounds of the gears in Lexa's mind trying to work out what was going on. It takes everything Clarke has not to lean up and experience firsthand if Lexa tastes as good as she smells and answer all of the brunette's unspoken questions, but then there's _that_ girl that hangs around Lexa, and - both girls are startled by the popcorn kernels starting to pop, and bolt upright, knocking the other's forehead with their own.

Lexa scrambles off Clarke as quickly as she humanely could despite the pain, the two girls trying to laugh off the situation they almost found themselves in awkwardly as they help each other up off of the floor.

Lexa seems to forget about what happened halfway through Mean Girls and presses herself up against Clarke's side, commenting on how she would whoop Regina George's (admittedly attractive) ass if only she had the chance. Clarke can only nod stiffly and presses her thighs to quell the heat that was pooling there, trying to ignore how nicely Lexa seems to slot into her body.

 

 

 

Clarke's got a massive English essay due in three hours, which would be bad enough even if she had completed her conclusion and editing. So naturally, in the midst of referring to a thesaurus every two minutes and frantic typing, Clarke slumps back into the hard plastic back of the school library chair and looks up from her laptop to stare out the window. It had been raining since the last class (school had only been a half-day, thank the literal heavens), and the world outside was now just hues of grey and dark blue. It was eerily silent, apart from the comforting, soft pitter patter of rain falling on the roof. Condensation had formed on the windows, blurring the view from the multi-storey building, and Clarke's semi-grateful, because she spends way too much time staring out of windows when she's supposed to be doing work then is advisable. Her phone buzzes, and it brings her back into the present. So, grumbling several colourful swear words underneath her breath, Clarke checks her phone. She sees several texts from different people and some random Facebook and Snapchat notifications, but forgoes them when she sees texts from Lexa.

 

 

 **Sock Commander** _(3:07PM)_ : Clarke?

 **Sock Commander** _(3:08PM)_ : How is your essay going?

 

 

 **Sock Commander** _(3:17PM)_ : This is what happens when you forgo writing your assignments.

 **Sock Commander** _(3:18PM)_ : I am reduced to texting you instead of simply talking in person.

 **Sock Commander** _(3:18PM)_ : Multiple times, may I add.

 

 

 **Sock Commander** _(3:36PM)_ : Do you ever pick up your phone, or have all the times we've texted been nothing but a dream?

 **Sock Commander** _(3:48PM)_ : I am now doubting your abilities to reply to anyone on time.

 **Sock Commander** _(3:49PM)_ : I know you check your phone every 2 seconds when you're trying to put off an assignment. Even at the last minute.

 

 

 **Sock Commander** _(3:59PM)_ : Clarke.

 **Sock Commander** _(4:01PM)_ : Oh my god, Claaaaaaaaarke.

 **Sock Commander** _(4:02PM)_ : Okay, if the essay is so bad you're not replying, I'm coming over to the library and helping you.

 **Sock Commander** _(4:03PM)_ : Because that's what best friends are for.

 

 

 **Sock Commander** _(4:14PM)_ : Best friends are also for replying on time.

 **Sock Commander** _(4:15PM)_ : Also, I am bringing someone, I hope that is okay.

 

 

Lexa was coming to the library.

With _'someone'_.

_Shit!_

... Clarke knows exactly who _'someone'_ is.

She shivers as she wipes the condensation away from the window next to her, and she freezes mid-wipe when she sees her best friend outside wrapped up in multiple layers underneath an umbrella, with _that_ girl's arm around her waist. Shit, shit, _shit_.

Clarke can't deal with this right now. So mission _'escape-best-friend-crush-person-and-their-girlfriend-person-or-something-highschool-style'_ comes into action.

She all but slams her laptop screen down, yanks the charger out of the wall, slings her bag over her shoulder and makes a frantic escape out of the door (the librarian and other students glare at her rapidly retreating back with a ferocity she doesn't notice). Lexa hasn't come up the staircase to the library yet, but Clarke can hear her laughter echo off the walls from the floor below, and her heart falls to her feet. It only helps to propel her, and she's halfway up the staircase that goes up to the next floor - she's so, _so_ close to freedom - when that girl's sickly sweet voice rings out.

"Clarke, there you are!"

She pauses mid-step - _just_ as she was about to reach the next landing and hobble her sorry ass to freedom. One day, Clarke vows to herself, she was going to strangle that little bitch.

It was inevitable that Clarke would meet Lexa's girlfriend person thing. It was just as inevitable as the horrible, ripping feeling in her chest she had felt when she had shook the girl's hand with the best smile she could muster. She still remembers how that insufferable girl had tightened her grip around Clarke's hand so that the blonde couldn't tug her hand away, and had leaned in to whisper into her ear, "Let's remember who out of the two of us will end the night fucking Lexa while she begs for it."

It had taken all Clarke had not to rearrange the girl's face with nothing but a toothpick and a blunt teaspoon right then and there.

So it is with great effort and lots of internal swearing that the blonde turns around to look down at the two girls with the best smile she could muster.

"Hey, so that's where you are? I was about to text you that I was moving and go to meet you."

Lexa arches an eyebrow. "You always finish your last minute assignments in the library."

The bitch decides it's her place to join the conversation. "Yeah, Clarke. But wait - if you were going to text us -" Clarke only smiles wider to hide her rage about the fact that the bitch had said 'us' instead of 'Lexa'. Lexa didn't belong to anyone. She belonged to herself. "- Then why wasn't your phone out in your hand? And if you were coming to meet us, then why were you going upstairs and not down?"

Clarke shrugs, "I needed to get something."

"Sure you did." The girl narrows her eyes up at the blonde, and tightens her grip on Lexa, who has absolutely no idea about what exactly was going on and is just standing there awkwardly, her eyes flitting between the two, ready to step in if need be.

Clarke begins to walk down the steps, eyes narrowing right back at the other girl. "What exactly is your problem?"

The girl lets go of Lexa, straightening up to her full height. "What, you wanna fucking go, you fake ass -" Her sentence is cut off by Clarke's fist smashing into the side of her face.

 

Clarke handed in her assignment two minutes before the deadline with a hearty bruise forming around her eye.

 

 

 

 

A few weeks on from the assignment, the fight, and a weeks' worth of detentions, Clarke no longer sees the girl that had seemed to be glued to Lexa's side. She had felt almost ecstatic when she had inquired Lexa about what happened afterwards during lunch, only for her best friend to shrug and say that it didn't work out.

"I'm sorry it didn't work out, Lexa. Maybe if I hadn't -"

"I would not date someone who attacked my best friend."

Clarke doesn't press further. She feels like she should feel guilty that Lexa's... Thing or relationship or _whatever_ it was didn't work out, but at the same time, she can't help but smile to herself as she wolfs down her mum's newest healthy food obsession, spicy chicken salad. Further down the lunch table, Octavia watches the two girls with a bemused expression and a raised eyebrow.

 

After school, Clarke had been walking to her car to drive home when Octavia had jogged up, slightly out of breath from sprinting most of the way from the bottom of the school grounds (curse whoever built this school on a fucking hill. What a fucking dick stick, honestly).

"Sorry Clarke, Mr. Beresford kept us in because some fucknugget decided that his balls were big enough talk back to him."

Clarke pulls out her phone and whistles when she sees the time. "One more minute and I would've driven off without you."

"You're an asshole, Griffin." Octavia punches Clarke's arm and grabs her keys to unlock Clarke's baby, a black MR2, shouting "SHOTGUN!" as she scrambles into the front passenger seat. She chucks her Jansport over the headrest and into the backseat, before propping her feet up on the dashboard. Clarke laughs and opens the driver's door, catching the keys with one hand when Octavia chucks them at her.

"You do realise there's no one to challenge you for shotgun, right?" Clarke begins to sit down in the driver's seat, still laughing as Octavia only offers a shrug in lieu of a proper answer.

"You do realise your crush on Lexa is really obvious, right?" Octavia retorts, and Clarke stops laughing abruptly and almost bashes her head into the car frame as she quickly turns to face Octavia.

"I don't know what you're talking about," she retorts, way too quickly to come off as innocent. Clarke's face was quickly starting to turn a shade of bright red, and Octavia feels a sense of victory creeping up into her chest.

Octavia just smirks. "You skank, don't pretend like I'm making up shit. So, tell me everything."

Clarke sighs and rests her head on the steering wheel, before murmuring something.

"Speak up, Queen Queer. I can't hear you."

Clarke mumbles something even louder, her words muffled by the steering wheel.

"Still can't hear youuuu ~"

"I said, is it really that obvious?"

The dark haired girl begins to laugh, watching as her friend's face begins to blush something fierce. "Yeah. Like, everyone can see it. We all kinda thought it, but never asked? It was practically confirmed today when you almost pissed yourself out of joy that Lexa isn't dating that chick anymore."

Clarke bolts upright. "I did not almost piss myself." She punctuates her retort by slamming her door shut.

"Uh-huh... So, you admit that you _were_ happy that she isn't dating someone anymore?" The brunette taps her cheek in mock thought.

Clarke groans and slumps back into her seat, and staring out the front window at absolutely nothing in particular. "Okay, okay, I was happy about it. And I shouldn't be. She deserves to have somebody that makes her happy."

"Oh, let's be real, that girl was a real skank. Lexa would be waaaaay better off with you then her." Octavia pauses. "How long have you felt this way about Lexa, anyway?"

Clarke puts her seat belt on and slots the key into the ignition, putting her foot on the brake. "Ever since we were little."

It was Octavia's turn to bolt upright, seat belt forgotten. "Ever since you were little? Holy shit, son!"

Clarke just shrugs in response, turning on the engine and putting the car into gear, placing her feet on the clutch and the accelerator, before putting a hand on the back of Octavia's seat and twisting to see where she was going to reverse. "Your seatbelt, Octavia."

The sky starts to drizzle all the way to Octavia's, and only eases up when they pull into the driveway and Clarke has finished her story.

When Clarke looks up at the sky a short while later, she sees a double rainbow and spares a thought about how Lexa would become overly excited and Instagram it. God, Lexa is such a giant nerd. So to satisfy the little voice nagging at the back of her head, telling her to show her best friend, Clarke takes a carefully-taken photo and sends it to her.

Her heart skips a beat when, instead of replying with a jokingly solemn _"Concentrate, Clarke,"_  Lexa replies with a solemn, "We need to talk."

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Please, feel free to hit me on the way out.
> 
>  
> 
> My tumblr is commmando.tumblr.com, so if you guys ever wanna keep up my Clexa stuff, it'll all be there.


	4. Extracted Blades

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In which the rating goes up.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'm so, so sorry for the late update! I had a bad fall off my horse and I almost fractured the wrist of my writing hand (the bone is still bruised two weeks later), and I couldn't physically type or write for awhile. Whoopsie.

Lexa Woods had always been a 'strong person.'

She was strong when her best friend cried into her shoulder. She was strong when people at school called her a stone cold bitch, when she was the exact opposite. She was strong when her mother would tell her that she was worthless, that Lexa was nothing but a liability. She was strong, even when her mother would pull her hair backwards just hard enough so that Lexa would have to fall to her knees to cope with the pressure. She was strong when her mother would shove her into table tops, leaving bruises and torn skin on her hips. 

She was strong, even when she pried blades out of shaving razors using candles and tweezers. 

She was strong, even when she cleaned those razor blades and tucked them away in torn tissues, with nothing but two hair ties to stop them from unravelling. 

She was strong, even when she excused herself to the bathroom during school to unravel those little bundles. 

 

She was strong, even when people asked why she had taken so long in there, or when they accidentally bumped into her thighs. 

 

She was strong, even when she had given up those slivers of metal to the depths of a school toilet bowl after she had moved in with Gustus. 

 

She was strong, even when the urges came back for no reason at all.

She was strong.  
She was strong.  
She was strong.

But she certainly didn't feel strong this time. So it is with heavy hands that she texts Clarke that they need to talk.

And so, Clarke finds her sitting underneath the tree in the reserve behind her house, the sun setting in the distance (the summer-like hues makes a pang of nostalgia bundle up in their chests). The blonde wordlessly sits down next to the brunette, and leans backwards until the bark of the tree pinches the skin of her back through her thin school shirt. 

Contrary to Lexa's message, they don't do any talking. They don't even look at each other, instead opting for staring out over the reserve as the last tendrils of the sun sink below the horizon, dying the sky shades of orange and pink. It's almost serene.

As the final rays of light begin to filter through the trees, Lexa looks up at the branches of the willow tree she was leaning against. They were silhouetted against the dark blue of the sky, waving with the wind as air rushes through its bare branches. It has long since lost its leaves. She tries to blink back the threat of tears, tries to focus on the details of this barely living thing instead, but lets the tears wordlessly flow instead when Clarke hears her shuddering intake of breath and pulls her sideways, so that Lexa's head lies on her thigh. 

Clarke doesn't question, doesn't make small talk, only strokes strands of Lexa's hair into place, studies how the light falls on her face. It wasn't fair how she could still be so beautiful, even in the face of despair (this is not romantic, Clarke tells herself, despair and guilt and pain of someone should never be romanticised).

 

"She's dead." 

Lexa's voice remained strong and steadfast.

Clarke doesn't say anything in reply, only holds Lexa's shaking body with soft touches and brushes and coos when a particularly harsh sob racks through her best friend. She didn't know what to say. Words would swell up in her throat, only to die once her lips parted to speak them.

Because, what did they even know about life in the first place? 

(The sun finally sets).

 

 

It's only when Clarke shivers and Lexa has long since stopped her silent mourning that they sit upright. Clarke makes no move to correct her posture further, or to wipe the tears off her thigh, only watches the black figure of Lexa as the girl rises to her feet and staggers away towards the street with the aid of her phone's flashlight. She should go after her.

She doesn't.

 

 

Her mother is dead.  
Her mother is dead.  
Her mother is dead.

 

 

Lexa can't sleep. She looks up at her bedroom ceiling, and wishes that this hollow feeling will go away. School didn't matter, that fling with that girl didn't matter. She laughs with the bitterness of it all - how naïve she had been only a few days, a week, a month before.

The laughing turns to crying, then the crying turns to silence (the silence curdles with nothing to fill it).

She wants to feel the cold electricity of metal against flesh, she wants to feel the physical manifestation of the roaring pain she feels in her chest cavity. 

(Lexa ignores how her phone screen lights up).

Her mother is dead.  
Her mother is dead.  
Her mother is dead.

Because, what did Lexa even know about life in the first place?

 

 

Lexa blocks out her friends, Clarke included. The pain follows her wherever she goes like a lost puppy. It snaps at her heels whenever she so much as tries to smile back as people offer sympathetic smiles that could only be borne from the awkwardness of knowing somebody's relative has died. It watches as she goes through the motions. It sometimes nips at her fingers whenever it thinks she has forgotten. It wags its tail in delight whenever it sees the sympathetic, pitiful, abashed looks on the faces of the people surrounding Lexa.

Her mother is dead.  
Her mother is dead.  
Her mother is dead.

She opens her locker, and a note falls out of it. It has 'Sock Commander' written on the outside of it in messy writing with a doodle of sock encasing the word 'Commander.'

(Lexa leaves it in the school hallway to be trampled and torn up).

Because, what did Clarke even know about life in the first place?

 

 

Lexa deletes and blocks Clarke's number on her phone when the notifications get too much. She deactivates her Facebook. She deletes Snapchat, Messenger, and Instagram. The actions send jolts of electricity coursing up her fingers, and they settle in her palms like a constant reminder. They give her a distraction from the dull monotone of pain.

Her mother is dead.  
Her mother is dead.  
Her mother is dead.

She learns to censor Clarkes' and Gustus' pained, sympathetic glances. She steps around Anya's outstretched arm that blocks her way in the hallways. She looks through Indra, as if the other girl was nothing but a sheet of clear glass. She doesn't eat lunch when she sees Octavia, Lincoln, Monty, and Bellamy in the cafeteria. She doesn't speak when Jasper apologizes when he keeps bashing into her in her bicep or ribs in P.E. 

(She doesn't look at Clarke).

Because, what did any of them even know about life in the first place? 

 

 

Her mother is dead.  
Her mother is dead.  
Her mother is dead.

The four words resonate inside her skull till the early hours of the morning every night. Tears filled with unresolved emotions leave patches on Lexa's pillow.

Final exams are coming, and there are workbooks strewed all over Lexa's room, and bits and pieces of funeral plans stick out from underneath them. But when she tries to study, the words blur together, they become a jumbled mess, meaningless and disorganised and incomprehensible. It had been easier when Clarke was there. Clarke would know exactly how to lighten the atmosphere.

Her mother is dead.  
Her mother is dead.  
Her mother is dead.

But no, Lexa doesn't deserve this. She doesn't deserve anything to be lightened or enlightened or whatever the fuck needed to be stuck under stadium lights in the game that is life. She doesn't deserve good things.

Her mother is dead.  
Her mother is dead.  
Her mother is dead.

The words drive her crazy.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Please feel free to use your "one punch free" ticket on me on the way out


	5. A Walk Down Memory Lane

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> TRIGGER WARNING:  
> Self-harm, domestic violence, mental/physical/slightly sexual abuse, slight homophobia & transphobia, mention of suicidal intent
> 
> \---
> 
> Nostalgia makes our pasts seem a bit more beautiful then it ever really was, doesn't it?

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'm so, so sorry.
> 
> Shit.
> 
> I mainly type all of my fanfiction up on my iPhone before sending it to my PC and uploading it from there. And that is where the problem lies. Apple, being a dick, decided, "Does this chick need the content in her phone notes? Probably not." So all of my phone's memory was wiped because of a stupid accident that I am not going to recount (it makes me angry enough every time I even so much as look at my phone). I had over 20,000 words typed up for Nostalgia, and when I lost it all, I kinda rage quit for awhile.
> 
> \-- But I have worked hard and gotten all 20,000 words all back and typed up, so now - for absolute sure - I will be updating at least every week on Friday. ^^

The bed sheets are warm underneath her, and the night air seeps into the room. Condensation has formed on her windows, and the light of the streetlight on the road outside is blurred. Darkness clings to the corners of her room, and if Lexa closes her eyes slowly, it seems as if it will consume the room altogether.

Lexa is sprawled out on her bed on her back, her arm hanging over the side.

 

_Her father had lifted her above his head, and they had spun in circles until the world spun around them, too. Her mother watched from their deck with fondness and love etched into her face, her lemonade long having gone warm in the warmth of the New Zealand summer._

 

An uncontrollable shiver runs up her spine, and she pulls herself up into a sitting position. The effort took all the willpower she had, and leaves her heavily breathing against the wall that adjoins her bed.

 

_The policemen had come and gone, their shoes leaving slightly grey imprints in the carpet. It had been well past her bedtime of 6, and Lexa had only heard the ending traces of the conversation through the closed living room door, dressed in her favourite pink nightie. She had thought it was nothing serious, her daddy was a police officer - it'd be okay._

_She had snuck into the kitchen for a glass of water with the lightest feet a 7 year old could manage, and flicked the light on. She had to jump several times to grab her favourite glass. When she had finally grabbed it - after exclaiming "Yessss!" - she had filled it up with water and was about to go back to her room -_

_"Lexa..."_

_The little girl whirled around._

_The glass smashed as it hit the vinyl floor, water splashing against the floor and the side of the cupboards. What she saw wasn't for little girls._

Lexa didn't remember what her mother had said when explaining the unfortunate accident that had claimed her father that night. The only thing that had registered was -

 _"It's all your fucking f_ _ault," her mother spat through her tears._

_Lexa didn't rub away the drops of spit on her face, but she did collect the shards of the glass her mum used to drink lemonade out of while watching them play._

_She had watched as the glass tumbled out of the dustpan and into the bin._

_She slipped a shard into her pocket._

 

Lexa cast her gaze upwards, towards the ceiling, for the thousandth time that night. The glass shard still felt the same in her hand, although it had seemed sharper, more impressive back then. Nostalgia had a weird way of making everything in the past more impressive then it actually was like that.

 

_“Stop fucking crying!” Her mother slammed on the brakes, and the coffees that Lexa had been holding in her lap spilt all over her and the backseat. She doesn’t say anything, only curls over in half and tries to stifle her sobs into her school sweater._

_"You look so fucking pathetic right now!" Her mother screams over her shoulder, slamming her foot on the brake again as their car sails around a curb corner far too fast. The wheels squeal and protest as they only just barely make the turn. **"** I wish you could see how pathetic you are. You'd set a new world record."_

_Lexa just bites on her hand in response, and tries to ignore the red hot burning of her skin as the coffee sinks through her school skirt._

_The car's wheels squeal again as her mother swings it into a parking lot. Bright, white light filters into the car instantaneously, and the dark of the night is left behind at the entrance. However, the pain and tears are not._

_Her mother got out of her seat, leaving her door wide open, and flings open Lexa's. She grabs what remains of the coffee and throws it across the parking lot, screaming "Fuck!" as she does so. Lexa recoils at the sound, trying to withdraw further into herself._

_Her mother once again reaches into the car, and leaning over Lexa, tries to soak up the mess with a bunch of tissues. A torrent of abuse comes from her mouth, and the words echo in her daughter's head._

_It is after they get home, and Lexa has only just gotten out of the shower with bright red, minor burns on her thighs, that her mother comes to her with an unvoiced plea in her eyes and voice. "You know I love you, right?"_

_Lexa shakes her head in an affirmative, controlled manner._

 

She looks down at the shard of glass in her hand, and flips it over. The little light that seeped into her room flashed through it for a millisecond. She runs a finger down the edge of it, and images and recollections of how blood had stained it come to mind.

 

_The first time that Lexa had come home after sleeping over at Clarke's, her first real friend, she had been on Cloud 9._

_Her mother made sure to negate that effect with a well-placed slap when Lexa had not referred to her as 'Mother', but as 'Mummy', like she had heard Clarke refer to Abby as. Lexa had recoiled, her hand raising up to her cheek out of shock. It was the first time her mother had struck her, and she didn't quite know what to think of it._

_After their dinner was eaten in silence and her mother was satisfied with the quality of Lexa's homework and she had passed her mother's little exam after her hour-long study time of the topics that had been covered two weeks ago in school, her mother had sat Lexa down. Kneeling down in front of Lexa, she takes her daughter's face in her hands._

_"You know I love you, right?"_

_Lexa shakes her head in an affirmative, controlled manner._

_When Lexa goes to bed that night, she pulls down her pajama shorts and writes the pain into her skin with the shard of glass she had kept under her bed._

 

Lexa tugs down the band of her sweatpants, and reveals her thighs. Dark brown scars are arranged in long, neat, horizontal lines. Some are curved slightly, and there are parts of the scars that are even darker. The scars on her left thigh are deeper, darker. They cover the skin from where her legs connect to her stomach, to half way down her thighs. She runs a gentle finger over each one. 

 

_Lexa had almost told Clarke, once._

_She had almost confessed that her mother would twist her wrists, bend back her fingers, pull her hair backwards until she had to fall onto her knees to deal with the burning pain. She had almost confessed that her mother had punched her square on the nose when she had tried to change the TV channel. She had almost confessed that her mother would discipline her for getting the second best grades by whacking her ribs with the baseball bat Lexa used to play softball for school. She had almost confessed that her mother would blame everything on her - her father's death, her mother's depression, the fact that Gustus identified as gay and was a transgender man. She almost confessed that she cried herself to sleep every night that she didn't see Clarke or when the abuse was especially bad._

_But then Abby had showed up to pick up Clarke from school in the rain, offering to take Lexa too, but Lexa turned her down. She turned her down, because her mother would make sure the abuse would be especially bad if Lexa didn't walk into the house soaked to the bone._

 

Lexa turns her attention to her right thigh instead. The scars are less deep, shorter. Skin that was free to be marked.

She begins to press the shard down into the skin there, and is oblivious to the knocking on her door.

 

_She was strong._

_She had hid her self-harm habits for years from her mother, her best friend, the people that surrounded her. That wasn't made her strong, marking her thighs with a shard of glass she stubbornly refused to let go of. What made her strong was the willpower to continue on, when the abuse took a different point and her mother had just began running her hands over Lexa's body in sexual appreciation._

_It was when her mother had walked into the bathroom while Lexa was showering that she had seen the scars on her daughter's rage. She had dragged Lexa out of the shower, and in between screams of, "You have no fucking right!", "Only I can touch you!", and "I will fucking mark you myself, you ignorant, self-absorbed bitch!", she drove her fists into every bit of wet, vulnerable flesh Lexa had exposed._

_Lexa had stood up for herself._

_She had managed to rise up from the ground, and had grabbed her mother's ponytail. She had pulled back, back, until her mother wailed from pain. Then she shoved her mother off, into the bathtub._

_She had managed to escape to her room, grabbing her little shard of glass, and putting nothing on but a pair of sweatpants and a hoodie while her mother began wail out of logic-consuming anger._

_She only barely escaped the house._

 

 

She swallows past the knot in her throat as she makes her first line. Blood instantly seeps through, forming in little shiny beads.

She doesn't hear the knob of the door being opened.

Birds begin to sing as the very first tendrils of the sun's light seep over the horizon, and begin to light up Lexa's room.

 

_Lexa had begun to run. She had run away from her house, towards the lake and tree her and Clarke sat under. It was there that she frantically hacked at her arms with the shard of glass. It didn't matter if anyone saw - she was too mad, too sad, too undeniably out of control and out of her mind to care. Memories came and went. One rang true -_

_"Don't cross the street. Go down the street."_

_And she was going to try - but, by any God that was up there in the sky, she was afraid. She was afraid._

_She had looked up in the midst of her mindless flesh slicing, to see Clarke's house. The lights were still on._

_So she follows the light._

 

"Lexa?" Lexa's heart stops. She looks up, only to see Clarke. "What are you doing?"

Lexa doesn't have an answer. She expects Clarke to yell, to hit her, to knock her senseless, just like her mother would.

But Clarke doesn't.

Instead, Clarke sits down softly on the bed, and slowly reaches out a hand to take the shard of glass. Lexa recoils, scrambling down the bed away from her. She wishes she didn't when she sees the hurt in Clarke's eyes. But, she was so  _goddamn_ afraid - 

 

It's Lexa that places the shard in Clarke's hand. Clarke takes it and slides it into her own pocket, zips up the zipper.

 

 

After the blood had been cleaned away and the wounds cleaned, Clarke traps her best friend in a bone-crushing hug.

"I'm sorry I wasn't there for you."

 

 

 

Lexa watches as Clarke tosses the shard of glass into the lake.

 

 

 

 

Clarke makes sure to avoid touching Lexa's left thigh as they fall asleep in Lexa's bed, curled around each other. 

 

Lexa felt safer then she had in a very long, long time.

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Don't worry, I'm sure you all will... Love the next chapter. 8) Our babies won't be in pain foreveeerrrr.


	6. Party Like You Fucking Mean It

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> hHAHAHAHAHAHA

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'm so sorry everyone! Delays, delays, delays.  
> Power cut in my area.  
> My beta had to stop beta'ing for me.  
> Anddddd then A03 went down just as I was posting the chapter.
> 
>  
> 
> So this update was waaaaaaay too late!

The bass was so powerful that it was shaking the house slightly, and the floor was vibrating underneath them with every drop in the music. Everyone in the house is drunk on summer - finals having finished a month ago - and the nostalgia that comes with the season, so Clarke can only hope that her family's beach house won't be trashed by the time morning comes.

(She knows it’s going to be hopeless. 17 & 18 year olds + alcohol + summer = disaster.)

She steps up onto the last step leading to the second floor and into the sunlight, and has to raise a hand over her face to see. Lexa is standing out on the balcony with her back to Clarke, dressed in a skin-tight, maroon long-sleeved v-neck, with a pleated black skirt and black zip-up heels. She's leaning on the glass barrier bordered in white, and the breeze off the sea gently plays with her hair. At the sound of her best friend’s muffled footsteps, Lexa turns around, offering a small smile as she realizes who it is. Clarke thinks it’s wholly unfair how godly Lexa can look after finals - black wings so immaculate and so sharp they could probably slice a man in half, the grey skin underneath her eyes caused by the stress of doing well and pulling all-nighters now gone, with the sea crashing down on the horizon in the background. Clarke’s hands itch with the desire to sketch out the scene, to imprint it into her head, detail for detail.

“It’s serene, isn’t it?” Lexa comments, dips her head momentarily so her loosely braided hair falls from behind her shoulder to the front.

Clarke can only shrug with a sheepish smile, wonders this feeling means.

“What’s that behind your back?” Lexa inquires a few moments later, raising a perfectly shaped eyebrow (Octavia had pinned Lexa down while Raven had plucked them with a careful hand, and it totally, definitely, didn’t do anything to Clarke to see the brunette’s subtle pouty face).

Clarke smirks, and in mock thought, taps her chin with one hand and presses the other that was behind her back into a firm fist.

“Clarke, mockery is not the sign of a strong mind.” A minor note of impatience enters her best friend’s voice, and the blonde only shrugs in response. “Claaaarke.”

With an exaggerated sigh of submission, Clarke offers Lexa the fist that had been behind her back. Her best friend begins to gently unfurl her fingers with a confused look, but when she sees what was inside Clarke’s clenched palm, Lexa gives her one of those heart-melting smiles. That exact one where one side of her lips would twitch upwards and she would look at Clarke like she was the most precious thing that existed in this side of the universe. “What’s this for, Clarke?”

The blonde gently swallows, looks away from that dangerously genuine look (whoever said the window to the soul was through the eyes, must’ve known Lexa in some past life). “It’s a congratulations, I guess?” (It wasn’t just a congratulations. But Lexa can't know that.)

Lexa ducks her head down, and Clarke misses how there seems to be a soft red flush creeping up onto her best friend’s cheeks (despite knowing Lexas' mannerisms like the back of her hand). “Could you please clasp it on for me?”

They stand there in silence for a few seconds, simply just living in the moment, breathing in the nearby sea spray and the gentle scent of summer, before Clarke jolts into action. The blonde gently, wordlessly, tucks a few loose brunette strands behind Lexa’s ear, fans them out a little bit. Clarke absolutely refuses to let her breath shorten this close to Lexa, so instead she masks her breathlessness by leaning in even closer to clasp the two ends of the necklace’s chain together. She adjusts it a little bit, making sure the small golden heart is aligned, and that the clasp of the necklace was hidden at the back of Lexa’s neck. Her fingers linger on the thick chain for a few moments, before she gathers herself with a deep breath and grabs Lexa’s hand instead, tugs her friend forward into the house again.

“It’s time we joined the party.”

“Hmmm, I’m not sure if you’re capable of a party.”

“What?”

“You can’t have fun. You’re too busy being the mother hen.”

Clarke mock gasps, covers her heart with her other hand. “I so can have fun! I’m such a fun person.”

Lexa raises her eyebrows. “And global warming is a myth.”

 

 

 

If the layout of vodka, beer, and rum Clarke had put out wasn’t enough, (almost - _coughs **JASPER** coughs_) everyone had also contributed with the occasional pack of cruisers or beer six packs. So it was apparent at just 11 that everyone who was drinking was going to get smashed. Not the type of smashed you get when you first start drinking at a small house party of your friends’ and you accidentally drunk too much vodka too quickly, but the full-out, “I can’t walk, talk, or even think straight,” giving strangers your wallet, “Oh, I thought that was the bathroom,” smashed.

 

 

 

The night passes in a blur for Clarke. She vaguely remembers dancing, grinding, kissing faces she doesn’t remember. She remembers very distinctly Lexa grinding on her for a show, and the warm bolt of arousal she had felt. She remembers pink, red, green, blue, flashing lights, and the sculling of beer, vodka shots, and rum to quench the thirst Lexa had left down the back of her throat. She remembers Murphy hollering and grinding against one of the pool toys for some ladies. She remembers – knows – the world is spinning around her. She remembers dancing on the table, only being pulled down when she hit some guy with a flailing foot. She remembers seeing Lexa kiss a girl and wanting to vomit. She remembers seeing Bellamy awkwardly hitting on a girl and does vomit.

 

 

 

So of course, in the early hours of the morning, it would be a good idea to play Spin-the-Bottle while pretty much every single person was utterly intoxicated. Because that’s such an original idea that’ll totally end well.

 

 

 

“Kiss! Kiss! Kiss! Kiss!”

Raven grabs Bellamy by the front of his shirt – “Come here, you self-righteous son-of-a-bitch,” – and kisses him. It’s sloppy, wet, and it’s painfully clear Raven is either really smashed or trying to make Bellamy pissed.

“Okay, break it up you two. There’s only so much gag-worthy material a girl can stand before she has to sit the fuck down. Which reminds me -” Octavia breaks the two up by shoving herself in the middle, and pushes Raven back down onto her ass. She starts off the new spin by throwing the arm that was holding her rum up into the air. “It’s around fucking time to see something other than gag-worthy PG material up in this joint, motherfuckers!”

“I can help you solve that -” Raven says in a mock seductive tone, and accents her offer with a wiggle of her eyebrows, slides a hand across Octavia’s collarbones.

Lincoln coughs loudly, and Octavia places a hand over the top of Raven’s drink. “No more beersies for you, Hag _raven_.”

Raven gasps and withdraws her hand, and promptly blacks out into Monty’s lap (who didn’t hesitate to help get her over to one of the couches and make sure she was in the correct sleeping position and sling a blanket over her. What a gentleman).

With Raven down for the count, the game begins again. A drunken combination of horrid kisses and display of kissing skills ensue with people and some… Absurd objects.

To name a few:

Bellamy had to try and kiss himself (he ended up kissing Clarke’s hand mirror, as the nearest substitute.)

Murphy had to make out with a door handle (how did that even happen? Nobody knows!)

Wells had to make out with green dinosaur pool noodle (who even makes those?)

 

The only thing Lincoln kissed was the lips of a vodka bottle.

Monty had to kiss Harper (and they went for cheek kisses. What cheats?)

Atom kissed Octavia really briefly (that was awkward enough, considering that Bellamy had broken their relationship off “in Octavia’s behalf” by dumping him in the middle of nowhere with nothing but a dirty sock.)

Jasper had to kiss a couch armrest, with tongue (he complained about couch fibres on his tongue so much afterwards Lincoln duct-taped his mouth).

And then, Clarke and Octavia -

The kiss had been doomed from the start. Clarke had giggled against Octavia since the start, bumps their foreheads together. Octavia shoves Clarke away with a forceful hand to the chest and a laugh – “You need to go back to practicing on a blow up doll.”

Clarke falls back onto her ass with a mock gasp.

The game is continued and the bottle spins again, and Clarke's head spins along with it. It slows, and slows, then it blurs out of her vision, and then it finally stops. The whole world jolts and spins again as she looks up from the bottle to see who was on the receiving end, just to see that she had been too drunk to notice Lexa had joined the circle. The brunette looked bemused and amused simultaneously, shoulders hunched from being squished in-between Bellamy and Harper due to the sheer amount of people. A cheer erupts from Octavia, and a second later, the whole room erupts in cheers.

Clarke has to clamp a hand over her mouth to stop herself from vomiting.

"I can't."

And with that, Clarke scrambles to her feet, and the world sways to the side. She only just manages to stop herself from falling by grabbing onto some random guy's shoulder with a hasty, slurred apology (it might've been Finn’s shoulder, he had trying to 'score' with her when she had been drunk lately. What a fuckboy.) She stumbles outside, and desperately tries to clear her head by thumping her fists against the sides of her head.

It only really served to make the swaying of her vision worse.

She doesn’t know where she is outside, but the cool air against her feverish skin makes her feel a bit better.

The sudden warm, radiant presence next to her only made the swaying worse.

“Claaaarke?”

“Youmightwannastepawayfew -” Clarke leans over and tries to get that sick feeling out of her stomach, but is unsuccessful.

“Are you okaaaaay?” Lexa slurs her words a bit, and pats Clarke’s head as Clarke continues to try and retch. “There there.”

Clarke straightens up, wipes the side of her mouth with her hand (even though there isn’t anything to wipe away except for salvia, she doe does it anyway). “Claaaaaaaaaaarke.”

“Yessssssss?” The blonde drags out the word, grabs a bottle of chilled water from the chilli bin and unscrews the lid, tips the bottle backwards to send a stream over her face in hopes of clearing her head.

"Is the idea of kissing me an unsatisfactory concept?" The words are slurred, the usual clipped edge having dropped off her voice long ago, but there was no denying the authority, the self-righteousness underneath the slight hurt in that tone.

Clarke sputters into the stream of water, trying to work through the mess in her head (and the water stream that was currently streaming over her head) in order to actually reply with something other than, "Jesus’s ball sweat – shitballs – Satan’s bleached asshole - no!" through a mouthful of water. She chucks the bottle away and she doesn’t even know where it went (she thinks she heard a dull thud and a ‘hey, asshole!’), but the swaying of her vision and the cloudiness of her head is still there.

The world continues to spin, and Clarke’s line of vision focuses in on the gold necklace that hangs from around Lexa’s neck. It would be so easy to just grab the thick chain and pull Lexa down to eye-level with herself, cup that killer jawline in one of her hands, and then angle her head to the side and do what she’s wanted to do for years; kill that hurt in her tone with the same stone.

_Is she going to do this?_

 

She grabs the chain with her left hand, and gives a short, jerky pull that makes Lexa stumble into her.

“Clarke, what -”

Clarke gives a gentle downward tug and Lexa follows the pressure with a questioning look.

_Oh god, she’s really going to do this._

They make eye contact, and Clarke tries not to let Lexa catch onto just how nervous and drunk she really is. She sways a little bit on the spot, and her eyes dart down to her friend’s lips. “This is entirely platonic.” (It was the biggest lie she’s ever told.)

(She missed the way Lexa’s eyes darted down to her lips, too.)

And with that, after waiting for Lexa’s nod, Clarke closed the distance between them.

Lexa goes to cup Clarke’s jaw, pushes forward with a hand on Clarke’s back to stop her from falling backwards.

 

 

 

Clarke pushes Lexa down backwards into the bed – they didn’t know whose, it was too dark, the music was too loud, and blood was feverishly pumping through their veins – and crawls on top of her as gracefully as one could whilst that drunk.

“We’re drunk.”

“Smashed.”

“Out of our minds.”

“Totalled.”

And with that closure, Lexa strains to close the gap between them, but Clarke pushes her back down with an index finger placed on her collarbone.

“This is platonic.”

“No homo.”

Clarke laughs into Lexa’s neck, and tilts their heads together again, slides a hand up Lexa's thigh.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Just as an end note, if anyone would be willing to be a beta for me, that'd be great! Nake sure to drop me a line @ comannndo on tumblr.


End file.
